


but she said it's okay; i got some wilderness skills beneath my belt

by blackwood (transjon)



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Dysfunctional Relationships, F/F, Hunt!Daisy, post eyepocalypse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-14
Updated: 2020-07-14
Packaged: 2021-03-04 18:35:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,575
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25270981
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/transjon/pseuds/blackwood
Summary: She pulls on her hair lightly. Nothing violent. Just a quick, gentle tug. Basira’s eyes blink open and then close again. “Sorry,” she says.“Why?”And isn’t that a question –Sorry for not killing you when you asked me to. Sorry for letting you become like this. Sorry for letting you protect me. Sorry I still protect you. Sorry Istilllove you.“I don’t know,” she says.“Liar,” Daisy rasps, but she pulls Basira closer regardless. “You’re a fucking liar, Basira.”
Relationships: Basira Hussain/Alice "Daisy" Tonner
Comments: 14
Kudos: 48





	but she said it's okay; i got some wilderness skills beneath my belt

**Author's Note:**

> title is from marinade by dope lemon
> 
> PRESIDENTIAL ALERT the girls are ALMOST HERE!!!! anyway. uhhhhhhhhhhh well this happened

The first few weeks they do not sleep. 

–

Daisy doesn’t change. 

Or she does – of course she does, but there is no drama to it, no abrupt pushing out of claws or monstrous lengthening of her fingers. No sharpening of teeth. The curve of her jaw remains soft and when Basira cups it in her hand Daisy nuzzles against her palm, but not like an animal. 

“You should’ve killed me,” Daisy mumbles against her neck. Her teeth don’t rest on Basira’s throat – she’s speaking from between gritted teeth, after all – but Basira doesn’t think it would make much of a difference if they did. 

“Still could,” she says. Somehow Daisy’s hair is still soft under her palms when she pets over it, fingers carding through the locks, nails scratching against her scalp. She’d chopped most of it off with a steak knife a while back. It’s patchy and uneven, parts of it short enough to stick up and out if she doesn’t smooth it down with her fingers, but it’s still soft. Still butter blonde. 

Like meat. She treats her belongings like meat. She treats her own body like meat. Wounds and scars and bruises and the choppy cut of her hair. Careless. To herself she’s just meat. What are other people, then? 

“No,” Daisy says, the meat of her mouth moving around her words. “I’m too powerful.”

“Right.”

The fire crackles on. The heat doesn’t feel right. No comfort in it. No warmth. It’s strange, because the heat is there – it burns, if they get too close, but it’s not _warm._ She feels cold to the bone. 

“Should’ve taken your chance,” Daisy says, and though she’s smiling there’s something sharp in her voice. “Look at what I’m doing now.”

“That’s not my fault.”

“Sure,” Daisy agrees. 

Curious, how accusing that feels. How she doesn’t sound sincere at all.

–

“You thought I came back wrong,” Daisy says. “From the coffin.”

“We’ve been over this,” Basira says, somewhat impatient, but Daisy’s got her hand around Basira’s throat (not squeezing – not holding – just clasped loosely, so that her palm rests over her pulse –) and Basira isn’t afraid of her but –

“Yes,” she says, and swallows. “I’m sorry.”

“No reason to apologize,” Daisy says. “Quite smart, actually. I missed you, after, but it makes sense.”

She gets this look in her eyes sometimes. Her voice goes dreamy and unfocused, like falling into a trance, but her eyes – 

Basira shudders, and closes her eyes, and licks her lips. When she opens her eyes again Daisy’s looking away. 

“I’ll be back,” Daisy says after a long minute of silence where Basira looks at her and she looks at the floor. Her grasp loosens, and then she’s pulling away. 

On the way out the door Basira half expects her to fall to all fours, like an animal. Like a dog. She doesn’t. She never does. It might almost be better if she did.

–

She pretends that the screams, in the distance, aren’t because of Daisy. 

–

When it doesn’t work she pretends the people screaming aren’t people at all. That they’re monsters. That they’re vampires. That they’re other hunters. That –

–

“D’you think Jon’s out there?” Basira asks. Melanie, she thinks, must still be alive. She doesn’t dare imagine otherwise. 

“Maybe,” Daisy says. She’s content, Basira thinks. She’d gone out earlier for what felt like a very long time, and when she came back there was blood on her. Hands and shirt and jeans and shoes. Some on her neck. Up to her chin, actually, although it’d stopped there, the line between gore and clean skin abrupt and neat. She’s clean again, now, but it’d taken her a long time to wash all of the blood away. The house still smells like blood. Sometimes Basira wonders when the drains are going to back up. When weeks worth of gore and blood are going to flow back up and out. If they’re going to drown in it all. Does Daisy know? Can she smell it? 

“Do you think we’re safe?” she asks instead. Daisy’s hand stills in her hair, and then there’s the sound of a low, rumbling growl that reverberates through her skull, down her spine. 

“I’ll keep us safe, Basira.”

She pulls on her hair lightly. Nothing violent. Just a quick, gentle tug. Basira’s eyes blink open and then close again. “Sorry,” she says. 

“Why?” 

And isn’t that a question –

_Sorry for not killing you when you asked me to. Sorry for letting you become like this. Sorry for letting you protect me. Sorry I still protect you. Sorry I_ still _love you._

“I don’t know,” she says.

“Liar,” Daisy rasps, but she pulls Basira closer regardless. “You’re a fucking liar, Basira.”

–

“I don’t need your protection,” Daisy snaps, and in that moment she sounds more like an animal than ever before. 

“Sorry,” Basira says. She feels like she’s doing a lot of apologizing lately. She wonders if she should’ve apologized more, before. Repented and confessed her sins and all that. Not sure what it was that Daisy’d done, exactly, and her grasp on the tenets of catholicism are shaky at best anyway. Doesn’t matter, she supposes. Not like she’s catholic to begin with. 

“It’s fine,” Daisy says. She’s pacing around the living room. There’s mud everywhere from Daisy’s boots. The mud is probably at least half viscera. Basira tries not to think about it too much.

“I wish you’d take off your shoes,” she says evenly. 

“The floor is dirty,” Daisy mumbles. “And besides, I might have to go out.”

To kill, she means. She might have to go out and kill. 

“Right,” Basira says. She doesn’t feel trapped here, not exactly, although she supposes it’s not entirely inaccurate to call the situation that. A trap. Mouse trap. Springs ready to snap. Whose neck will be caught under the bar? Hers or Daisy’s? How far is she willing to go?

–

No point backing out now. No point. Everything’s over already anyway.

–

When she dreams it’s in bursts of blood and exploding bodies. 

Sometimes they explode on their own. Like a plastic explosive. Like a mosquito, full of blood, squished under a hand. And sometimes there’s –

Insects. Or there’s teeth. Sharp teeth sinking into taut skin, blood spraying out like a balloon. It’s a stranger. Someone she’s seen once. In a Tesco. On the tube. Someone with a face that exists, out there, somewhere, or at least existed once. It’s a stranger. Or:

It’s Tim. Or it’s Melanie. Or it’s Jon. Or it’s D–

She wakes up from those dreams like slogging through mud, knee deep and sticky. Dreams. Nightmares. In this place, in this world, is there a meaningful difference? Anything she could possibly imagine would be both better and worse than reality. In these dreams someone explodes right in front of her. In these nightmares people disintegrate right in front of her eyes. 

“Daisy,” she says, but Daisy doesn’t wake up. She dreams with her teeth clenched. She dreams about bodies, as well, but hers are dreams the same way a dog dreams of chasing a rabbit. 

In this bed, then, she’s alone with her back to Daisy’s chest, Daisy’s arms around her, Daisy’s nose pressed against the back of her neck. In her head people keep exploding. Outside of this house people keep dropping dead with no warning. Inside this house, in her bed, is the woman – the _thing_ – that keeps making sure they keep dropping.

–

If Jon is still out there, she wonders, is he, too, lost in the hunt? In the thrill of it?

–

If Melanie is still out there –

–

Surely Daisy isn’t the only one. Surely Basira isn’t the only one justifying. 

–

Yet still she’s justifying –

–

Back then, they’d had each other’s backs. It hadn’t even been a question.

Now, though – 

She wonders. She considers. In some selfish way it feels better like this. Familiar. Like something she can deal with. 

Daisy doesn’t put her teeth to her throat and when she kisses her, her mouth doesn’t taste like blood. Special, she thinks, I’m special. And isn’t that all she’s ever wanted? To be an exception? The only one?

“Wish we still had croissants,” she mumbles one morning, still in Daisy’s bony, strong arms. 

“Thought you didn’t have to eat anymore,” Daisy says. 

“Can’t I just want a croissant?”

“Suppose so,” Daisy agrees. “Sorry, Basira.”

“S’alright. Not really like there’s a post-apocalyptic Lidl out there.”

Daisy’s head lifts from the pillow behind her in slow motion. Basira imagines her hair sticking up, out, in every direction at once. “Lidl?”

“Yes?”

“Huh.”

Basira squirms lightly, and then harder when Daisy’s grasp around her doesn’t loosen. “Why? What’s wrong with that?”

“Nothing. Stop fighting,” Daisy says, and there’s a tone in her voice that makes Basira stop immediately. Like a tranced rabbit. On her back. Daisy’s hot breath on the back of her neck. The sharp point of her nails digging into her skin. 

“Sorry,” she says. Breathless. Trembling. 

“S’okay,” Daisy says. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

“Okay,” Basira agrees.

Daisy settles back down. Her breath is warm against the back of Basira’s neck. 

In. Out. In. Out. Outside the sun doesn’t rise. Outside the birds don’t sing. She wonders how long til the screams get too loud to ignore again.

–

She hopes, vaguely, secretly, at the back of her mind, that someone will kill Daisy. She hopes that when they do they’ll kill her as well.


End file.
